Gerhardt said he had put the stock of his shotgun on the rattler`s head and was reaching down to pick it up when ``he slipped out and caught me with one of his fangs.``

The snake then struck the shoes of friends before a hunter Gerhardt said he didn`t know shot it.

``I got in (a friend`s) car, I heard a shot and I seen dust on the ground,`` Gerhardt said.

Gerhardt said one of his hunting buddies drove him to a Mobile gasoline station at Royal Palm Beach and Southern boulevards, where a police officer called paramedics to the scene. They then drove Gerhardt to Doctors Hospital.

It`s the second poisonous snake bite in the general area in less than a month. On Sept. 25, Paul P. Swiderski, 12, was bitten by an Eastern coral snake outside his home in Loxahatchee. The bite kept Swiderski in critical condition for nearly a week.